


Achromatopsia

by lifeorbeth



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 11:55:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3691341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeorbeth/pseuds/lifeorbeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Knowing is not understanding. Just as a dictionary will not help one interpret a painting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Achromatopsia

**Author's Note:**

> Achromatopsia  
> noun  
> a visual defect marked by total color blindness in which the colors of the spectrum are seen as tones of white-gray-black

em·pa·thy

ˈempəTHē/

noun

1 :   the imaginative  projection  of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it

2:  the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also:  the capacity for this

 

 

The word haunts me; my dictionary is creased such that it always falls open to that page and, staring up at me between empathize (v. to regard with or feel empathy) and emperor (n. the ruler of an empire), it mocks. It mocks like the longing glances Sarah sends my way, begging for a response, for comfort maybe? Or a conversation?

I know that she hurts - it's written plainly in the concave (adj.  having a shape like the inside of a bowl: curving inward) curve of her shoulders, in her unnatural stillness. I see it, I can quantify every tic, every uncharacteristic gesture and remark, and yet I cannot respond. I cannot empathize.

My world crumbles like besieged city walls, taking stone after hurled stone, when she drowns herself again and again in alcohol, when I cannot touch her or kiss her for fear of tremors in my fingers and the ache of withdrawal in my chest. If I keep my distance, I can dissociate (v. to end your relationship with or connection to someone or something: to separate [yourself] from someone or something) from those feelings. If I keep my distance, a different ache replaces them.

Sarah's world - one of bright colors and beautiful accidents made by slips of an artist's brush - is foreign to me. To enter, I must be expressly invited, I must be given a tour. Because in a world like that, one cannot exist while colorblind. Brilliant hues and splashes of variant colors appear to my eyes as smudges of gray on white on black, the sharp lines blurred, the shapes distorted.

But Sarah doesn't verbalize (v. to express [something] in words: to say [something] in speech or writing) her hurts. And so I am banished to the grayness and a lack of understanding.

In the night while we sleep, curled together like two halves of one whole, I ask her to talk, to explain in words what she feels, to take her time because I know the words are hard. Partly because I need to know. And partly because the sound of her voice scratching free of her throat, clinging to her tongue and teeth, in the darkness reminds me of an animal stripped of fur and plumage, becoming what it is rather than what it pretends to be. Because when she speaks, half-asleep, she loses the inflection (n. a rise or fall in the sound of a person's voice: a change in the pitch or tone of a person's voice) in her tone, speaking just too quietly for pitch to change as the words scrape at my ears.

And this is when Sarah becomes a poet, though her diction lacks eloquence. She paints the scenery of her world in my mind, using slow brushstrokes to draw my attention so I can follow along. But so much is left empty; I receive only part of a picture, a fragment of the scene. I need every detail - I need to grasp, fully, what is drawing her away - but I cannot fill in the gaps myself, and every nudge, every push, every prod forces up a new wall between us.

And so I fall silent, still not understanding the anger that ripples in her chest. That is not to say that I do not understand anger, for it is not a difficult concept to grasp. Anger is just another noun, meaning to be angry - because the dictionary talks in circles when words are not enough to explain an abstract idea. So maybe I don't understand anger.

But I do not care about the existential "what is anger" - I care about why she is angry. Why she is afraid. Why our nights are so often interrupted by her waking with a jolt from a nightmare she won't explain. Why she no longer greets me with a kiss or mocks my accent by slipping into it in casual conversation. Why she is no longer Sarah.

They say that the yawning contagion (n. the process by which a disease is passed from one person or animal to another by touching) is indicative of empathy. But when Sarah yawns I merely smile. And she yawns quite often now for she never sleeps through the night. I battle the exhaustion with coffee; she just doesn’t expend energy anymore.

I wonder what happened to the buzzing energy, the bouncing feet, the hungry kisses and touches under the cover of darkness. I wonder what happened to Sarah. But she will not tell me, so I cannot know.


End file.
